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One of the things food writers struggle with most is how to promote recipes in a way that sounds authentic and not too braggy. You know your recipe is “the best,” but you can’t keep saying that for every one you write.

So what can you do to improve your blog posts, recipe headnotes, and social media blurbs? First, I went back to my most visited post: 100 Verbs for Recipes, from Julia Child. Who else could I research, I wondered, who would give me a similar list of fabulous terms?

I found inspiration on Smitten Kitchen’s Instagram feed. Deb Perelman is a master of promoting her recipes in a way that sounds effortless, fun, and full of personality.

Incredibly, there was no repetition of her phrases in the 100+ pitches I reviewed. I could probably give you 200 pitches. But I think you will get the point of how to pitch recipes with this list.

Of course, writing a salesy pitch is not all there is to getting readers excited about your cooking and baking. Deb also describes her foods sensuously in every post. You need that combo. (See caption above for an example.)

How to promote recipes? Deb Perelman shows you 100 ways:

Always a good idea

Resistance is futile

You definitely don’t want to miss it

Draws a crowd

Easily one of my desert island foods

One of the best dinners I’ve made this year

Designed to be eaten on laps, sitting outside. (Hooray.)

What I want every big weekend meal to taste like, and has become a family staple around here

If you can resist eating them all before you leave the apartment, you’re going to make so many friends with these

Keeps perfectly for lunches all week

I only wish I had them around more often

It’s basically impossible not to like

You can totally eat them for breakfast. Or dessert. Or just because.

Even more wildly delicious than it looks

Ridiculously good/easy

Will make you ridiculously welcome wherever you potluck/picnic/barbecue next

Welcome wherever you take it; this is a potluck favorite

Keep the recipe in your back pocket for the next time life is busy but you don’t want to compromise on dinner

I think you’re really going to like this

Nothing short of a dream

Clinically proven to righten the path of any weekend morning

Maximum weekend dinner luxury

I have made this every summer for a decade now

Basically every summer dessert worth eating in one place

Trust me, we’re going to be so happy about this

You’re going to immediately wonder why you don’t make this more often

Keeps in the fridge — as long as you keep us away from them

Obviously, this is exactly what we have to cook next

We make this all the time and think you should too

Smells heavenly

Be the Ina Garten/Martha Stewart of your party with this

It causes a frenzy

A surprising win in the Weeknight Dinners For Everyone category

These deserve to be a rest-of-summer habit

I want to eat it every day and every weekend all summer

Make your home smell eloquently September-ish, even if you (ahem: me) are kicking and screaming about it

Doesn’t get much better than this

My go-to forever favorite

Did they break into a happy dance? If they didn’t, well, more for you

I cannot wait to have it for dinner tonight

So popular around here, I have all but stopped asking my family what they want for dinner because they only ever request this

Like no other

They’re totally unforgettable

Everybody needs this

It’s the only thing I want to eat

Extremely addicting forever favorite

Always causes a commotion

Dinner bliss

100% guaranteed to improve all the days that they last

It’s unforgettable, and it only gets better as it rests — make it today!

If you do not fall in love, I promise to come and rid you of your leftovers

Gets better the longer it lasts

Have a way of not making it out of the kitchen

I have never regretted making two

Impossible not to make over and over again

The indisputable champion

Something I hope I’m never too old, smart or refined to eat

I don’t think you’ll find an easier or prettier…

Should any survive until the next day

The result definitely wants to come with you this weekend

Put it in your weekly rotation

Everyone will demand you make it again and again

We always wonder why we don’t make it more often

Delicious in a totally unforgettable way

Exactly what I want

This version is one of the best I know

My favorite dessert on earth

One of the most distractingly delicious things I’ve ever made

You don’t have to go another day without experiencing…

The leftovers are outstanding

It also makes glorious leftovers for lunch tomorrow; future you thanks you

I always wish I’d double the recipe so we’d have leftovers — don’t let it happen to you

What I want to eat all weekend for breakfast, lunch, or dinner

Almost instant gratification

It makes everyone happy

I can’t stop making this dish

Has the best of everything

Exactly what our Friday afternoons should taste like, don’t you think

I think you’re going to obsess over it too

I am obsessed with how good this is

Your friends thank you, in advance

it’s the FIRST THING TO GO every time

Trust me, this is the … of champions

This is the best I’ve ever had. What sets it apart? Butter. (I can’t believe you even had to ask.)

Ridiculously easy

Doesn’t require a special occasion to bake

Astoundingly easy to make

The ingredient list couldn’t be less complicated

This preparation converts everyone

Looks and tastes fancy and took about 12 minutes to make

Have it in the oven 15 minutes later

Who likes meals you can make in 15 minutes? Me me me!

You could be eating this in 20 minutes

Take all of 30 minutes to make

A cinch to throw together

Turns out to be comically quick and easy to make

Welcoming of adaptations

Leaving you more time for doing other things

What to make when you’re short on time or long on things you’d rather do than cook

How do they do it? The Literary Masters of Suspense

As a mid-career novelist, I am attempting to forge fiction that is a hybrid of the literary and mystery and suspense genres. And I have my role models, novelists whose work while suspenseful, also showcase in-depth characterization as well as consistently elegant and thought-provoking sentences that rival anything published in the “literary genre.”

One preeminent writer of this sort of fiction is the late Iris Murdoch, a Booker Prize-winning novelist as well as a professor of philosophy at Oxford, whose deeply thoughtful novels are often characterized by gruesome acts of violence and torture (both physical and psychological) and delicately wound in a golden thread of suspense. Two of her books, each of which involves small-town life, were particularly inspirational. First and foremost is The Word Child whose protagonist, Hilary Burde, an abused orphan, finds that his gift for language (how it works and fits together in poetry as well as prose), wins him a place at Oxford. Burde graduates with high honors, lands a teaching job at his alma mater, and at the height of his career, enters a love affair with a married woman, which is found out and causes him to lose his hallowed place in academia and bottom out. Hilary ends up in a boring, unchallenging office job and one day learns that his new boss is the husband of the woman with whom he has had the affair. The way Murdoch maneuvers her characters and situations with deep insight into love and relationships is intense and suspenseful, and from research into her personal life, I conclude that she has drawn the portraits of her characters from the obsessive, arguably destructive love affairs that punctuated her life—until she became afflicted with dementia.

Adding to this suspenseful novel is another Murdoch in the same vein, A Fairly Honourable Defeat, which begins as an experiment by a sinister character named Julius who aims, through a series of false claims and lies, to undermine the loyalties of couples (both gay and straight) and wreaks havoc on the lives of people who presume him to be a friend. The book is perfectly balanced between plot and characterization and is founded on a provocative idea: that evil is communicated throughout the world by people who suffer from it and who are willing to pass their suffering and this evil onto the next person. And the only way evil is stopped is when the suffering person makes a conscious attempt not to pass it on.

From Murdoch I move on to an American novelist, William Kent Krueger, the author of the Cork O’Connor series of mysteries whose stand-alone novel, Ordinary Grace, paints an indelible portrait of a small Minnesota town in the early 1960s and whose first-person protagonist, the son of a preacher, recounts a summer of five deaths, some of them accidental, some of them murders, and one of them, tragically, of his older sister. This potent coming-of-age novel rivals similar novels such as To Kill a Mockingbird and A Separate Peace, and takes its title from how the narrator’s father handles all sorts of difficult situations with ordinary grace. This book won the Edgar Award for best novel for a work of fiction published in 2012 and in many ways is remarkably similar to Louise Erdrich’s The Round House, another first-person coming-of-age novel set in the same part of the world portrayed by the winner of the National Book Award in the same year. Having read and admired both of these novels, I would be hard-pressed to choose which one is better, and I have no doubt that Erdrich and Krueger probably read one another’s novels and admired them as much as I did.

The real title of this post is How To Put the Social in Social Media Without Losing Your Mind or All Your Free Time.

That’s a heavy promise, right? Social media does like to suck up valuable family time, writing time, down time. If you think about it as a big vaccuum that gives nothing back, you WILL be resistant to this whole “online social thing.”

This post is about how pick your online locations carefully and develop habits that help fit social media into the life you actually have. It’s about how to make connections during the time you choose to spend online. And of course, I share what I do to keep my love alive.

We’ve had two posts in this throwdown already. One from Fae, who pretty much detests it. One from Julie, who has found the one place in social media that doesn’t give her hives makes her happy.

Those two are introverts, whereas Laura and I are extroverts. All four of us have different stances on this topic. Even on the extrovert side, Laura is retired and I work more than full time.

Translation: I have two part-time day jobs that sometimes expand to three, plus writing, plus volunteering, plus an eight year-old. (Plus a very understanding husband.) Many things in life are more important than my writing and I’ve had to learn to be okay with that.

It was hard to let go of perfection and my yen to Fast Draft, but there are rewards from my overburdened schedule. A big one is my time-saving social media habits, which I will detail at the bottom of this post.

Important Note (like super-duper important): Taking the “social” out of social media defeats the entire purpose. You will resent all that wasted time. (At least I would.)

If you’ve hung out at WITS for a while, you’ve heard me wax rhapsodic about social media before. Below are several of my posts that will give you all the how-to and “what the heck is it” info you might want.

And then there is little ol’ former technology-trainer me. I have a confession that won’t surprise you… I freaking love software and apps.

Love. Them.

I love the time-saving tools (although it’s super hard to beat my own kitchen timer for time management). I love the way technology connects people. I love the way Excel’s pivot tables summarize thousands of records into a table the size of your hand.

Technology is just cool.

However, time is in short supply and I’ve had to shoehorn social media into the schedule. Remember that promise from up top: How To Put the Social in Social Media Without Losing Your Mind or All Your Free Time ?

Here are my Top 5 “fit it in no matter what” social media tips:

1. The biggest trick I have is using the “in-between” time. In the long check-out line, or waiting in the doctor’s office. Waiting in the car line to pick up my kid. While I eat lunch. Just before I go to bed. While my kid reads to me (with my phone hidden from her view so she isn’t aware she only has half of my attention).

All those in-between moments add up. You’ll at least get 30 minutes a day. You can do a lot with 30 minutes! Plus, you’ve turned those boring “waiting” moments into something that is a reward (at least for me). Boorah.

2. Planning is everything. Some of your time will just be spent scrolling, liking, commenting. But a smart author plans out the week or the month, so the important updates get out now mantter how busy you are.

3. Decide who your audience is and focus your time in their neck of the online world.

I love what this article at Contently has to say – it’s a few years old but it’s still pretty accurate.

Let’s talk strategy. You have limited time, maybe limited content, and there is a very specific audience you want to reach. Here’s a quick, non-scientific breakdown of who uses which network:

Teenagers gravitate towards Snapchat, YouTube, Tumblr, and Instagram.

Soon-to-be-wives and soon-to-be-moms are all about Pinterest.

Young parents and grandparents alike can be found on Facebook.

Business types and leaders rule LinkedIn.

Influencers and bloggers love Twitter, WordPress and Tumblr.

Here’s an infographic with my thoughts on the main social media apps out there. (Yes, I totally think Facebook is a huge time suck.)

Made in Canva…in about 8 minutes.

4. Set up Google alerts. You want the content you are passionate about to come to you so you don’t have to spend time chasing it down. No one has time for that. Google Alerts email the info right to you.

Enter a search term for the topic you want to track. As you enter your terms, view a preview of the results below.

Choose “Show Options” to narrow the alert to a specific source, language, and/or region. Specify how often, how many, and how to receive alerts.

Select “Create Alert.”

5. Don’t be afraid to schedule. Especially during busy weeks, when I don’t have time to both post AND monitor, scheduling tools let me “have it all.” I go back and forth over whether I like HootSuite or Buffer better, but here is an article that compares them both. I also used Social Oomph for a while.

Overall, I’m super happy with social media. I don’t use all the tools I’d like to use, and I always feel like I’m swimming up stream in terms of time, but notifications and alerts allow me to at least keep up with the people who are interacting directly with me. I count that as a win.

More than anything, your time online needs to be fun and productive. Find your tribe and enjoy them. If your time online is fun, you’re less likely to resent it or view it as wasted.

Now it’s your turn! Introvert or extrovert? Social media lover or hater? And what are the tricks that have allowed you to fit it into your busy schedule?

If you’re writing a novel and are nowhere near the end, why spend time on short stories? Doesn’t that distraction delay getting to the end of the current draft, a moment that always feels months away? I thought so once. One year, I wouldn’t let myself touch any other project until I’d worked on my novel every day. This lasted five months until I revisited “The End.” Again.

Why should a novel writer devote precious writing time to short stories? After five novel drafts, two years of submitting shorter fiction, and seven publications, here are my reasons.

Do Something With All Those Ideas

Not every idea deserves a novel. And there’s something cathartic about expressing an idea soon after inspiration strikes. I’m not holding my breath and suffocating the idea because I have to focus elsewhere. As powerful as some ideas feel in the moment, most are quite happy as short stories or flash fiction or poems, or being expressed at all. I now tend to start each idea in the shortest possible form. I only expand the word count if my gut and reader feedback suggest there’s more to say. In the meantime, I grow my list of stories and drafts, not only my list of ideas.

Understand the Impact of Every Edit

An effective edit rarely moves me in the same way as what inspired the story. Revising a longer work can be a dreary process because it’s difficult to grasp the impact of my efforts. This is not the case with flash fiction. Try changing a word in a 100-word story, swap sentences in 250 words, or drop a paragraph among only 1,000 words. You’ll notice an immediate impact on the entire piece. This inspires me toward better revisions by reminding me how powerful each change can be.

Feel A Sense of Completion More Often

Novel drafts take months or years to write. Short story drafts can take weeks. Flash fiction, anything under 1,000 words, can be even briefer. I’m not saying shorter work is easier to write, or requires any less thoughtful revision. But the satisfaction of reaching the end of a draft will happen sooner with shorter fiction. This can prevent listlessness after always having the same answer for “what are you working on?”

Practice Finding Comps

I read every market to which I submit. If I want a literary journal to publish my story, I not only follow their submission guidelines, but I prove I’ve engaged with what they’ve published. I do so by including the stories I read and liked in my cover letter to the editor. If they overlap with my subject matter or appeal to a similar audience, all the better.

In practice, this is akin to finding comparative titles, or comps, for a novel and citing them in your query letter. Prove that you’re thoughtful and have an understanding of the market.

Strengthen Your Query Letters

Every market where I’ve submitted short fiction requires a cover letter. Writing cover letters has taught me how to address editors, present myself, discuss my work, and highlight my accomplishments. This builds confidence in writing and revising query letters to literary agents. Growing my publication history also strengthens my credibility for the next stage of my writing journey.

Give More Than One Story A Chance

I no longer believe I have to withhold myself from other creative work to finish an ambitious project like a novel draft. Novels do take intense focus and persistence, but the reasons above led me to a new strategy.

I’m currently working on a novel during the weekdays and shorter projects on the weekend. This means that by default, the hardest thing gets the bulk of my time. Sometimes, my weekends are writing-free and the stories have to wait, but I’m always making progress.

Though my novel may take a while before it’s ready, all those shorter pieces are out there, being submitted, rejected, accepted, and in any case, read. Don’t withhold your words from the world because your magnum opus isn’t ready.

What’s been your experience juggling short and long projects?Do you avoid multiple ongoing things at all cost?How has one form of writing informed another?

Why Do We Say that Writing is Hard?

It’s as simple and complex as having an idea, putting words together, adding the thoughts or feelings, linking to the research, and using keywords for SEO.

1. The Idea is the Starting Point

If you’re writing a blog about a particular subject, you’ve always got an idea. Can you present it from a different perspective? Are you an expert on the topic? Do you have credibility when it comes to that subject? If you’ve answered, “Yes”, then maybe you’re just bored with the idea.

That happens. How many times can I write, “Recovery works” to try and encourage someone struggling with their addictions? So far, I’ve filled a lot of pages on my other blog with exactly that same message.

In all fairness, not more than 5% of the posts literally include the words, “Recovery works”, but in each of these 185 posts, that’s the underlying message or idea.

Yet, each post is presented from a different viewpoint, or for some, it’s because I wrote from the perspective of depth rather than breadth.

2. What are the Thoughts and Feelings about the Idea?

Much of that writing entails describing thoughts and feelings; it’s personal to me, but judging from the comments, my experiences with the topic are commonplace. So the idea of addiction and recovery have an already established audience. Now, it’s my job to take the idea and make it fresh and new.

One of the easiest ways to get readers interested is to ask questions. So far, I’ve asked four and will ask more before I’m finished. Why? Because I know that what I think, feel, or know is limited to my experiences and there are other people out there who can supply additional information that I might find useful.

So now that boring, “Been there, done that” idea is open to others, and sometimes the What’s In It For Me principle factors here – the readers get to let me know how much they know about the topic. I don’t know how many other posts a reader’s comments have generated, but a fair number.

3. What Are Valuable and Interesting Research Links?

For some of us, the idea of research sounds like the library desk with musty, dusty tomes all opened to various pages, sticky notes protruding from them, and 3 x 5 cards littering the table.

Not today. Research is a key element in any post. Why? Because it validates your argument, presents reliable information by experts on the topic, references a quote that summarizes your topic, or lends credibility to your idea.

But too many people get careless in their links – the old Wikipedia will have something about it. Delve deeper than that. If you’re going to use Wikipedia, research the references and see where that leads. I’ve used the referenced sources before and been pleased with the linked information.

Links within also lend authority to any post. They can be external or internal. If you write on a collaborative site, like Two Drops of Ink, then see what your co-writers have to say about the topic. You’ve added a valuable link and given them some additional exposure for their writing.

I know that two of our monthly contributors, Noelle Sterne and Peter B. Giblett will always give links that let me know more about their chosen topics. I’ve yet to find a link in any of their posts that didn’t add value.

4. Can You See Me Now?

How many of you have searched for yourself or your blog? Confession, I have. And if I’m simply looking at Marilyn L. Davis, boy do I rate. However, that’s not really how most people know me. It’s the same for your blog or business. You may find yourself, but is that how the average person is looking for your site or posts? Probably not. Granted, some names are forever embedded in our brains. Think of all the major brands.

But since most of us aren’t a major brand, how do you get your name or blog to rank on the first page of Google? Eric Enge, general manager of Perficient Digital simplifies the problem.

“We tracked the SEO performance of a number of different sites,” Enge said. “The sites that provided exceptional depth in quality content coverage literally soared in rankings throughout the year. Sites that were weaker in their content depth suffered in comparison.”

In the WordPress editor, you can add categories and tags. So for the above, I’d add all the other aspects and probably attract readers who wanted more in-depth information, not just Keto diet.

Yoast Plug-in is a Second Set of Eyes

Yoast is a plug-in for a WordPress site. It also has an editor that gives you insight or frequently used words in your post. This also helps you determine keywords and where to strategically place them:

In the title – near the beginning

Throughout the post

Only where relevant

Check all the features of Yoast before you publish. There’s a lot of tips, edits, and suggestions that help improve your writing, as well as giving you a list of internal links from your site that would add value to the post.

And it’s always nice to get the little green dots – means something is right.

Will They Understand This Post?

Besides the SEO, Yoast will give you a readability score. This number is based on:

And don’t forget that images offer you one more place to add keywords in the ALT text. Since search engines can’t see an image, these words act as a point of references for the search engines.

For instance, all the images for this post include the name of the post, Two Drops of Ink, and my name. As an aside, I remember looking for an addiction image on Google, and up popped one for From Addict 2 Advocate. That reinforced the message that images are advertising in the background. Use them.

With just these four tips, you can make your writing relevant to your readers, add additional perspectives, find valuable links, and get Google’s attention.

The underworld is perhaps the most important motif in mythology and literature – tied up with ideas about life, the afterlife, belief, culture, storytelling, and the psyche, it’s the setting of humanity’s reckoning with the ephemeral nature of mortality.

As writers, we can use the motif of the underworld in two aspects:

The underworld as world of adventure

The underworld as world of the dead

Why write the underworld?

Create an internal or external site for the change your character undergoes, and the wisdom they extract from their experiences in the story.

Explore your character’s unconscious, and how the archetypes of the collective unconscious manifest in their life.

Explore your character’s reaction to the unknown in themselves or in the world.

Explore your characters’ reaction to the nature of death, and to the idea of their own death.

Explore your characters’ relationships with the dead (both those they knew in life, and those they did not).

Create an “underground” “sub-culture” that resists or subverts the ways of the ordinary world.

Remove the character from the home world in order to challenge and change them.

Develop the rules, customs, and aims of your story culture; in particular, how their perception of death shapes their perception of life.

Explore the boundaries of the upper world.

Deepen your story world by portraying its inverted, mirror, or dark side.

Tap into a rich literary tradition.

When to write the underworld?

The underworld as world of adventure is usually entered soon after the character begins their engagement in the story. In the Hero’s Journey, this is in response to the Call to Adventure, when the character crosses the Threshold of Adventure and leaves the Ordinary World behind. The rest of the story takes place in this symbolic underworld, until the character crosses the Threshold once again and returns home.

A literal descent into the underworld is likely to take place much later in the story. In the Odyssey, the voyage to the land of the dead happens in Book 11, almost halfway into the 24-book poem.

A journey to the world of the dead is best undertaken when the character reaches a mental, emotional, or physical standstill in the story. Their work with the world of the living has progressed as far as it can, and in order to seek deeper truths, uncover secrets about themselves or their world, or achieve greater mastery, they need to overcome more difficult challenges.

A journey to the world of the dead is the ultimate challenge a character can overcome, which is why those who succeed in returning are revered in myths around the world. You can prepare your character for the journey by having them first undergo adventures that take them to locations symbolic of the underworld.

In the One Page Novel, the character enters the World of Adventure in the Quest, and emerges back into the Ordinary World in the Power (thus the two stages can be plotted as mirror opposites). However, a literal trip to the world of the dead might best be undertaken when the character is deeper in the underworld, particularly during the Shift and Defeat. The Shift suggests an overturning or inversion, and no location better symbolises a sense of loss and Defeat than the depths of Hell.

How to prepare for the Underworld?

In order to be ready for the underworld as World of Adventure, the character must acknowledge and respond to the Call to Adventure. This may be either…

An external motivator (something or someone else), or,

An internal motivator (the character themselves),

and their response may be…

Willing (they are convinced of the need to respond), or,

Unwilling (they are forced to respond).

In order to prepare to enter the underworld as World of the Dead, the character should be at a point in the story where…

They have experience of previous symbolic descents to the underworld.

They have tried their mental and physical powers and have achieved some success.

They have a very strong motivation for undertaking the journey, and this motivation manifests both internally and externally.

Additionally, the character may prepare in the same way they would when entering any dangerous situation. They may…

Sacrifice themselves or someone else, perhaps as replacement for one of the dead.

The Underworld as World of Adventure

In the Hero’s Journey, this is the world that the character enters by crossing the Threshold of Adventure. In The One Page Novel, this is the new world of the Quest. In opposition to the World of Adventure is the Ordinary World which is the familiar home that the character leaves behind (Stasis), and usually returns to at the end of the story (Resolution). The Ordinary World is the world of light, while the World of Adventure (being in the underworld) is characteristed by increasing darkness.

The World of Adventure is a conceptual story space, meaning it may not be an actual location in the story, but simply the part of the story where the character encounters new and complicated:

ideas

rules

people

challenges

But often it’s easier for writers (especially within the constraints of genre) to turn the World of Adventure into an external location, and to physically remove the character to the new World. This also allows you to set up the important contrast and tension between the Ordinary World and the World of Adventure.

For example:

Leaving home to start university/boarding school

Starting a job at a new company

Moving to an unfamiliar location

Meeting someone in a strange neighbourhood

Setting off to discover an unkown part of the world

EXERCISE

If you’re using a plot formula, identify the stages that belong to the World of Adventure/the Underworld.

What physical location symbolises the Underworld of Adventure in your story?

Psyche in the Underworld by Eugène-Ernest Hillemacher

The Unconscious

In this clip, Joseph Campbell describes a diagram which represents the self as a circle, intersected by a line representing the Threshold of Consciousness.

The Threshold of Adventure – that is, the symbolic division between the upper and lower worlds that the character crosses – is also the Threshold of Consciousness. In this sense, any descent into the underworld requires the character to face the fears and insecurities in their psyche. The story is the process of bringing to light the shadow self that has been relegated to the individual’s or the society’s unconscious, and integrating this shadow back into the whole.

Loss of consciousness is sometimes an initiatory act that mimics a symbolic death, and for this reason it can be a meaningful element of a ritual that allows passage to the underworld.

EXERCISE

What has the character been unwilling to accept about themselves?

What has the character’s society been unwilling to accept about themselves?

How does the character commune with their subconscious?

Dissent & Descent

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

– Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost

When something is secret, illicit or illegal, we tend to use language such as:

Underground

Underhand

Undercover

Under the counter

Sub rosa

On the down-low

In contrast, we use language denoting “up” or “high” to express moral superiority:

High ground

High-minded

Upright

Upstanding

Above board

Uprisings are put down, people who follow alternative ways of life are said to be part of sub-culture, and desires which contradict our social persona are relegated to the sub-conscious. Clearly there is a link between dissent and descent, and many writers have enjoyed the practice of overturning this order and making the underworld the site of life and light rather than death and darkness; chief among them, William Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Blake not only penned his own hellish proverbs and undermined the word of the Bible, he also reinterpreted the work of one of the greatest English poets (and perhaps of all poets) when he wrote:

Note. The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.

EXERCISE

What is the accepted social order in your world?

Who goes against the social order? Who has been forced “underground”?

How are the inhabitants of the underworld morally superior?

Note: I’m dying to deconstruct this section, but I’ll leave that pleasure to you…

The Underworld as World of the Dead

While the World of Adventure is a story space, the World of the Dead is a physical location, although it can be either an internal or an external landscape. The World of the Dead is often the setting of the afterlife – the place where souls “live” after the body dies. But it can also be populated by characters who are spiritually “dead”, or who have been exiled, or who have chosen exile from the Ordinary World for various reasons.

In this sense, you can use a symbolic World of the Dead in your story without reference to a spiritual or paranormal explanation.

The Wasteland

A distinction may be drawn between the underworld and the wasteland motifs in literature, where the underworld involves a willing descent and a quest to an existing location – usually to bring back some vital wisdom from the dead – while the wasteland often descends upon the character because of a (perceived) misdeed and transforms the world around them.

The prototype for the wasteland motif is the story of the Fisher King, whose ailing causes the land to become barren.The worlds of post-apocalyptic fiction, no-man’s-land in war fiction, haunted locations in ghost fiction, and corrupt corporations in crime fiction are common equivalents of the wasteland in modern literature. For the underworld journey (katabasis), at least for the Western literary tradition, the prototype is in Homer’s Odyssey.

The difference is subtle, and as a writer you’re welcome to ignore it, however…

If your characters spend most of the story in the “underworld”;

If your characters don’t journey to the world of the dead, but instead…

Their ordinary world transforms into the world of the dead;

and if the appearance of the world of the dead is linked to a character’s misdeeds,

… then you might want to consider developing the wasteland motif as distinct from the underworld.

The Island of the Dead (Die Toteninsel) by Arnold Böcklin

Types of Literary Underworld

THE URBAN UNDERWORLD: One popular use of the World of the Dead is as a “criminal underworld”, occupying the dark and dingy corners of a city. But it’s important to remember that, while society may regard its inhabitants as criminals, from another point of view the inhabitants may very well be a group of marginalised, disenfranchised, misfit characters living in their own “ordinary world”.

The urban underworld may also be the home of unusual or supernatural people or creatures who have been forced “underground”. As such they may use sewers, underground/subway tunnels, basements, bunkers, or other subterranean urban structures.

For example:

The opium den in The Man With the Twisted Lip

Knockturn Alley in the Harry Potter series

London Below in Neverwhere

THE HEAVENLY UNDERWORLD: There may be some debate about whether this is really an underworld at all, because worthy, long-suffering, “good” characters are often seen ascending to a higher plane in the sky. This is usually depicted as the celestial abode of the “good” gods – such as the Olympians, and the Asgardians, and of course the unified deity of the monotheistic religions.

However, not all descents underground are dark, grim, or hellish. Many cultures imagined subterranean worlds of light. In Zoroastrian scripture, the king Yima, in order to avoid a cataclysm, creates an underground city or Vara lit by artificial light. In shamanic journeys, the shaman descends through a hole in the ground and emerges into a bright, sometimes watery underworld. In Ancient Egyptian mythology, the daily journey of the sun god, Ra, briefly brings light even to those grim nether regions of the Duat.

While for most characters the Heavenly Underworld is the end goal, for some it may represent boredom, being cut off from those they love, or a sense of unworthiness.

For example:

Avalon in the King Arthur legends

The Undying Lands (Valinor) in Lord of the Rings

Note: These examples are across the water rather than under the land, perhaps because the former represents a journey of hope and immortality, whereas the latter is more readily associated with death and burial.

THE HELLISH UNDERWORLD: Many religions foresee a painful end for those who don’t obey the rules, and the “hellish underworld” is where they end up. This is a world of eternal, sometimes fiery torment for wrong-doers. Often, each sinner’s punishment is tailored to them.

For example:

Hell in Paradise Lost

Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings

The Horcrux Cave in the Harry Potter series

THE GRIM UNDERWORLD: This is one of the most common literary underworlds because it offers a real chance of a “life”, though nothing on the scale of the Ordinary World. Sometimes the Grim Underworld is an adjunct to the Hellish one, and may be depicted as limbo or purgatory. Characters in this world may have unfinished business which they need to complete before transitioning on to another state.

But in other mythologies, such as in the Akkadian underworld, Kur, there is no final judgement, and the dead exist forever, with nothing to eat but dust.

For example:

The world of the dead in His Dark Materials

Pandaemonium in Paradise Lost

The underworld in Homer’s Odyssey

The land of the dead in The Earthsea Cycle

THE UNCANNY UNDERWORLD: Elements of the underworld are often inversions of the ordinary world. Sometimes these inversions overturn expectations, sometimes they subvert the traditions of the world of the living, and sometimes they literally turn things upside down. This can be useful for comical effect, but it can also impart an unsettling feeling.

The German word, unheimlich, is usually translated as “uncanny”, but also means, “unhomely”. This is particularly apt for the character who leaves their home world and travels to an underworld which bears the characteristics of a familiar setting, but in a way which renders them strange and disturbing.

For example:

Wonderland in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

The house in House of Leaves

EXERCISE

Why do you want your characters to spend time in the underworld?

What do your characters need to accomplish in the underworld?

Which type of underworld, or combination of underworlds, is best suited to…

Your genre?

Your character’s aim?

Your story world?

The Living

Looking at depictions of the underworld of the dead in mythical and literary texts, it’s clear to see that they have been created by the living, and for the living.

For example, some myths stress the importance of the judgement of the soul, clearly in order to encourage people to live well and do good while they’re alive.

Others emphasise the harsh living conditions that are only alleviated by material wealth and proper burial in the upper world, perhaps to uphold the status of the rich, or of a worldly priesthood.

For yet other cultures the key is to bear many children and keep up a line of descendants, and so they teach people how their dead ancestors suffer without regular libations and offerings.

EXERCISE

What is the most important social aim in your story world? Survival? Creation? Procreation? The accumulation of wealth?

What belief about the afterlife could uphold this aim and motivate the living to live accordingly?

Which type of underworld would be best suited to promote this social aim?

The Descent to the Underworld (katabasis)

First—hell is not so far underground—
My hair gets tangled in the roots of trees
& I can just make out the crunch of footsteps,
The pop of acorns falling, or the chime
Of a shovel squaring a fresh grave or turning
Up the tulip bulbs for separation.

“Katabasis” is the name given to the journey down to the underworld, or to the entire underworld adventure. The monomyth or “Hero’s Journey” presents the mythemes that may be encountered in a katabatic narrative, whether in the World of Adventure, or the World of the Dead, or both.

Broadly speaking, a journey to the underworld of the dead may include the following episodes:

Deciding to make the journey.

Searching for the entrance to the underworld.

Entering the underworld.

Meeting the guide to the underworld.

Paying the price for crossing.

Learning about the organisation of the underworld.

Meeting the souls of the dead.

Meeting the rulers of the underworld.

Being judged.

Obtaining the prize.

Journeying up out of the underworld…

And succeeding in returning to the ordinary world…

Or failing and remaining in the underworld forever.

A night-sea journey (in the “belly of the whale”) may also be a part of the katabasis, or it may be a separate episode.

The Entrance to the Underworld

The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labour lies.

– from Dryden’s translation of Virgil’s Aeneid

The entrance to the world of the dead is often a conduit underground. Depending on the story, and the purpose of the katabasis, the entrance may be nearby, in a familiar location, or at the ends of the earth or sea. It may also be in plain sight, or hidden and accessible only to a few.

For example:

Alice, in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, falls down a rabbit hole.

Professor Lidenbrock in Journey to the Centre of the Earth, finds a passage through an Icelandic volcano.

Percy Jackson, in The Lightning Thief, travels down an elevator in DOA (Dead On Arrival) Studios, Los Angeles.

Possible real or symbolic entrances to the underworld:

An adit/mine shaft

A lift/elevator

A cave

A volcano

A tunnel/underground passage

Stairs

A well

A ravine/crevasse

The roots of a tree

A sinkhole

A whirlpool/maelstrom

A basement/cellar/bunker

A cremator

A grave/crypt

A hole in the ground

An underground/metro/subway station

A gate

The purpose of a physical gateway to the world of the dead is to distinguish the katabatic journey from the usual method of entry – through death. However, it could also be possible to transport the character when they are unconscious, or dreaming.

EXERCISE

Is the entrance to the underworld hidden or in the open? Why?

Is the existence of the entrance known to all or only a few? What are the consequences for those who know, and those who don’t?

Is the character reluctant to enter? Why or why not?

The Guide to the Underworld (psychopomp)

At the Threshold of Adventure, a figure conversant with the ways of the underworld will appear to guide the character. This figure is often an animal or a therianthrope, but may also be human or divine. Sometimes the guide is an aspect of the traveller themselves, such as their soul, or anima/animus, as is the case in His Dark Materials when the children meet their personal death.

The guide may also be someone the character knew in life, in person or by reputation, as with Dante’s guides, Beatrice and Virgil.

Some mythological guides are:

Hermes/Mercury – ancient Greek/Roman messenger

Azrael – Jewish & Islamic angel of death

Anubis – ancient Egyptian god of the dead & embalming

The Grim Reaper – human personification of death

The guide may point out and describe…

The organisation of the underworld

The various divisions of the underworld

The souls of the famous, or infamous dead

The rulers of the underworld

The rules that govern the underworld

EXERCISE

Who knows enough about the underworld to guide your character?

What are their feelings towards each other?

How good is the guide? What do they reveal, and what do they hide?

The Toll

It’s also a common motif for the passage to the underworld to require a price of entry. In Ancient Egypt, people were buried with valuable objects for this very purpose, and in Ancient Greece, it was customary to place a coin in the dead person’s mouth or on their lips specifically to pay Charon, the ferryman of Hades.

There may also be a non-monetary price on knowledge from the underworld, famously in the form of the Faustian “bargain with the devil”, but also in prayers or offerings to the gods, or in the exchange of news or promises with the dead. For example, in order to speak to the dead, Odysseus pours libations on the ground, and vows to sacrifice animals when he returns home. In return for the wisdom of the runes, Odin gives up one of his eyes.

In some cases, the price may be even heavier, as a life for a life.

EXERCISE

What is the price for entering the underworld?

How willing is the character to pay it?

How do they try to bargain?

The Rules of the Underworld

Do not put on clean clothes,
Lest the (dead) heroes will come forth like enemies;
Do not anoint thyself with the good oil of the vessel,
Lest at its smell they will crowd about thee.

Do not throw the throw-stick in the nether world,
Lest they who were struck down by the throw-stick will surround thee;
Do not carry a staff in thy hand,
Lest the shades will flutter all about thee.

Often the underworld will have its own special laws that are not governed by the logic of the ordinary world.

One rule that holds in the underworld of the Persephone myth is that anyone who eats the food of the underworld is doomed to remain there for eternity. Another rule is that only those who have died are allowed in, and that no one is allowed out. Obvious, in a sense, and the crux of the katabatic character’s conflict, but their ability to succeed in their task and return to the world of the living will depend on their finding a loophole, or a compromise in the rules that govern the underworld.

In the World of Adventure, the character will often enter into a new society with different laws, priorities, and expectations than their home world, and their task will be first of all to learn the ways of the new world, and then to gain proficiency in them, and finally to synthesise them with the old world view.

EXERCISE

What rules can make the character’s work more difficult?

How can the character bend or break the rules to get what they need?

What are the consequences of bending or breaking the rules?

Pandaemonium by John Martin

The Geography of the Underworld

Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;
A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.

– from Don Juan (IV,4) by Lord Byron

Descriptions of the world of the dead often emphasise its vastness. If it is to contain the souls of every person who has ever died, the underworld needs to be much larger than the world of the living. This makes the underworld inherently suited to epic poetry. Even so, most writers feel the need to place some sort of order and division on the underworld.

In designing your underworld, you might consider…

LEVELS: Dante famously divides his inferno into nine concentric circles, each one featuring a different sin and its punishment. This allows him to deal systematically with the dead.

GATES: In the myth of Inanna’s descent, the Sumerian underworld has seven gates, and at each gate the traveller is stripped of a possession. This repetition is a way of showing the difficulty of the task, and of distancing the character from the world of the living.

LANDSCAPE: In Greek/Roman mythology, the River Styx formed the boundary of the underworld, and the dead were ferried across it by the boatman, Charon. Using natural features mirrors the ordinary world and makes the underworld feel uncanny.

CITIES: Milton, in Paradise Lost, describes the creation of Pandaemonium, the capital city of Hell. Again, this gives the reader an ordinary world order they understand, and which they can easily compare and contrast to their own.

The Inhabitants of the Underworld

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

– from A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg

In populating your underworld, you might consider…

THE GUARDS: often ferocious, mythical creatures wait at the gates of the underworld, such as the three-headed dog Cerberus in Greek mythology, or the Cŵn Annwn, or hounds of hell of Celtic myth. The lion-hippopotamus-crocodile Ammit of Ancient Egyptian belief fed on the souls of those who failed the judgement of Anubis. These terrifying creatures can safeguard the treasures of the underworld, and attest to the powers of those who can get past them.

THE BOATMAN (or FERRYMAN): Charon, the boatman who ferried the souls of the dead across the River Styx in Hades, is one of the best-known inhabitants of the underworld. Perhaps the idea of a chthonic river is particularly evocative? Or maybe it’s the story of the ferryman himself?

THE UNNAMED, UNNUMBERED DEAD: with such a vast number of departed souls, the most difficult task may be describing the sheer extent of the crowd in the underworld. This may impart a sense of awe, helplessness, or insignificance. On the other hand, it may also spur a character on to escape back to the ordinary world.

THE FAMED OR FAMILIAR DEAD: creating the contrast between the vast crowd of souls and the few who are recognisable and important to the katabatic character can be a way to heighten the emotional impact of the journey. It can also work to comic effect, depending on the exchange!

THE RULERS: They may be monarchs, military leaders, political leaders, or any character who mirrors or mocks the power structure of the ordinary world. The underworld is sometimes governed by a sibling of the ruler of the world of the living, to emphasise the opposition, but also the close bond that ties the two worlds together, as is the case with Hades and Zeus (Pluto and Jupiter), and Ereshkigal and Inanna.

THE RULERS’ CONSORT: Many chthonic gods and goddesses choose consorts from the world of the living. This can develop their own backstory, as well as serving the usual mythical function of explaining various seasonal phenomena.

THE JUDGES: The judges are sometimes the rulers themselves, but sometimes a separate deity or entity is chosen to judge the souls of the dead and find them worthy or unworthy to move on. This judgement is a great source of suspense, and can reveal a lot about the society, as previously discussed.

The Communion with the Dead (nekyia)

O, that it were possible we might
But hold some two days’ conference with the dead!

– from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Talking to the dead is one of the chief concerns of katabatic travellers. We all have at least one person we long to meet again, but communion in the underworld usually comes with its own challenges.

For example:

In the Odyssey, Odysseus must hold the souls back from feeding on his blood offering, until after he has learned what he needs from Tiresias.

In the Aeneid, Aeneas tries to embrace his mother, only to discover that she is no more than a shade.

There is a sense of urgency caused by the difficulty of maintaining communication, and staying alive in an environment meant for the dead. And no matter how long the character spends with their loved ones in the world of the dead, it is never enough…

The communion with the dead can also be a way for the character to uncover messages from their own subconscious, especially in discovering knowledge or resources that they already possess but are consciously unaware of. This is often the revelation that allows the character to rise up out of the underworld in the Power.

from L’Inferno (1911)

The Return from the Underworld (anabasis)

This lyre lark is for the birds, said Orpheus
It’s enough to send you bats
Let’s stay down here, Eurydice, dear
And we’ll have a bunch of screaming brats

– from The Lyre of Orpheus by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Characters who manage to navigate the underworld successfully, and complete the task for which they made the journey, eventually emerge back into the ordinary world, in a real or symbolic resurrection. However, sometimes the return journey is even more difficult than the entry, since escaping the world of the dead is not the natural way of things.

In the monomyth, Joseph Campbell describes several mythical events that might occur:

Refusal of the return – the character may decide to stay in the underworld rather than returning to the ordinary world bearing the elixir of life.

The magic flight – the character may be magically transported up out of the underworld, often pursued by a supernatural being who wants to keep them trapped. In response, the character may jettison items to try to slow the pursuit.

Rescue from without – the character may be saved by another supernatural being, or by someone from the ordinary world who “pulls them up” and out of the underworld.

Nor is the character’s work done when they are back in the ordinary world. Their task is then to disseminate the knowledge that they have brought back from the dead, in order to help improve their society. In terms of their own life, they will often take some time to adjust to the ordinary world, which has not only changed while they were away, but which has also shifted due the new perspective they’ve gained through their katabasis.

It’s not unusual for a character to fail to integrate the teachings of the underworld. And so begins the journey anew…

At the beginning of this year, we asked you to think of just ONE word to define or sum up your year ahead. No wrong answers – simply one word that captured what you wanted to achieve or tapped into something that spoke to you.

Well, turns out it was a popular task! HUNDREDS of replies flooded in – thank you so much, we read them all and feel motivated for you. While we cannot share absolutely all of them, we thought we’d pull out some of the most popular words chosen, along with a few other favourites that stood out. We hope they motivate and inspire YOUR year ahead.

FOCUS
This was one of the most popular words that we received. Among the responses, Margaret C wanted to live 2019 “in a focused way so as to own my life and enjoy the moment’s pleasures”, while Tara D was far more blunt in her reasoning: “I have chosen this word to avoid prevarication, which is the greatest enemy.”

SUCCESSAnother top-rating word, and for all the obvious reasons. After all, we all want a taste of success from time to time, so devoting an entire year to it seems like a great idea! Jenny K admitted that “I have avoided things sometimes because I have been scared of success” but she’s looking to turn that around in 2019. Meanwhile, Tiffany J was adamant: “The goal posts may move throughout the course of the year, but no matter how far or wide they move, I will be successful in all that I do, in every part of my life.” And finally Timothy L had a specific wish: “This year I want to win at least one of your 500 word story competitions.”

DOSam A likes it because it’s “a short, powerful word”. Kevin B also has hopes for this simple word: “Without the weight of any huge specific expectations, it will hopefully get my backside into some sort of forward gear on a regular basis.” And finally Natasha D is “determined to stop dreaming and start doing things that I know will make me happier. DO more writing, DO more courses to help me write, DO enter my writing in competitions – I won’t know what I’m capable of until I DO something about it. Two letters but endless possibilities.”

PUBLISHA clear goal for many of our community and a popular choice this year. Barbara P had this to say about it: “I have written for around sixty years always putting off the editing and publishing until one day. As a senior I know that if I don’t do it now I never will. All those notes and jottings must be completed. NOW.” Great sentiment Barbara – now is the perfect time! (Extra shout out to those who chose “now” as their word!)

REINVENTThe beginning of a new year can be a time for starting over, and many of the words had this kind of theme attached to them. For Marcia A, her choice had been all around her for some time: “I’ve been seeing it a lot, reading about it. I’m into Dr Joe Dispenza at the moment, fascinating person, mind blowing really. So to change old habits, old mindsets, you have to reinvent yourself. I like the sound of that. Becoming someone ‘new’.”

FUN
What a great word to hang to 2019’s hook! And for Fran C, she had a very simple reason: “Why did I choose FUN? It’s the single thing I want more of.” Who can argue with that astute logic?

HOPE
A very popular word, for a variety of reasons. For Christine M, she had many hopes including ones about health and this simple one which stood out: “I HOPE to put more laughter in my little corner of the world.“ Meanwhile, Paddy W hoped for “less stress, more joy” and Joan loves the word because it “embodies a cornucopia overflowing with positivity”. Final word on hope however goes to Michael S: “Hope makes it possible to dream. There is no equal to take its place.” Nicely put!

BREATHE
This word (also our feature picture!) bubbled to the surface a number of times, with Tammy R sharing that she plans “to take time for me, just time be me … back to the basics … just breathe!” For Belinda P, her trying 2018 was saved many times by “the ability to stop, BREATHE”. She explains further: “From work, to war, romance, illness and everything, breathing is what keeps us going.”

MEDefinitely the next most popular two-letter word behind “do”, it’s easy to see why ME makes sense for many of us who have spent years in services of others. As Shannon S puts it, “I’m not being selfish. It’s an attitude shift. I put Me at the back of the line a while ago letting Us and Them and Everyone Else move to the front. This year I will do the things for Me and move out of the mental fug of being overwhelmed all the time.” Robyn L also chose this word, years in the making, and is looking forward to “putting myself first in everything and re-establishing a life that is personally fulfilling”.

ADVENTURE
Many of us were looking forward to actual adventures here and overseas, while for others it was more of a literary journey – as Hannah A sums up: “This year will be a continuation of my adventure into the wonderful world of writing/editing and attempting to get my first book published or at the very least on the road to publication. There is so much for me to learn and I am looking forward to every minute of it.”

TRANSFORMATION
As we saw with ‘reinvent’, a new year is chance to become something else, and this word seemed to capture it best for many of those who replied. Ashlea C chose it for the following reason: “I feel like I have coasted along for the past couple of years and it’s time to step more out of my comfort zone. So this year, I really want to focus on my goals of becoming the person I want to be and take action towards living the life I want!”

CREATIVITY
We’re a creative bunch, including Claudia C who will be very busy come tax time it seems! “I chose it because it covers such a broad range of expression. Not only the arts, but crafts too. Also gardening, cooking and interior or exterior design. One can even be creative with one’s accounting! Ha ha!”

RISK
An interesting choice at first glance, but we love the courageous aspect to it and Johanna B seems to know where she’s going with it: “My ‘one word’ for 2019 is RISK – The kind that even if I fail in, is worth taking. I’ve realised that to keep growing in every area of my life, I need to keep taking action to move into unknown territories. So that’s my theme for this year – looking at every area of my life and seeing what kind of risk I can take to move forward and keep growing. As a writer this has meant, enrolling in two courses with you, talking to writers ahead of my journey and asking them for their mentoring.” It’s a great word Johanna (and yes, you had us at “enrolling”!). Here’s to positive risk-taking!

SIMPLIFY
The “new year declutter” is well in the swing of things – and the urge to simplify our lives seems more and more powerful. So it’s little wonder, theming 2019 with an eye on less being more would be a mantra many of you chose. As Genai R puts it, “I want less physical and mental clutter. More clear air, less waste. To take opportunities to be more efficient and try to avoid second guessing myself.” We hope you find it!

MORE
And just to prove that we are all on different paths, what could be more “yin” to the “yang” of “simplify” than MORE? Leanne L explains why she chose it: “I’ve always been a big fan of minimalism, but this year there’s just something in me that’s calling for a different approach – something that’s saying that it’s okay to ask for MORE, that it’s possible to be MORE, and that there’s so much MORE out there for me to experience and learn. So, this year I feel like I want to open up my life and MORE just seems to encompass where I’m heading.”

CREATING
Okay, this is similar to “creativity” from earlier, but we liked what Lynley H had to say: “Creating a word, a story, a way of being, a life. WRITING: serious writing, big writing, creative writing. I am creating that space for writing, making it a priority rather than merely fitting it in. The books, stories and poetry will be finished, and others started. I am creating.” We wish you all the best in your creating Lynley!

UKIYO
Definitely one of the more unique words we received, with Lex H having this to say: “The word I am defining 2019 with is ‘Ukiyo’ – a Japanese word that, literally translated, means ‘floating world’. In a sense, the word refers to detaching yourself from the worries of daily life and instead, living in the moment (something I’d very much like to do this year).” A wonderful word Lex – and wow, those Japanese have some great words don’t they?

CODDIWOMPLE
Another unusual selection – this from Suzie. “Saw this on my Facebook feed – it’s definitely my vibe for 2019. Lots of change and transformation!” Well, it definitely has a great vibe to it, and in truth, we suspect that most of our years may end up with a coddiwomplish tinge to them, Suzie!

LEARN
The nineteenth word is one very close to our hearts here at AWC. This is why Mali M chose it: “I spent most of 2018 being very unhappy in a job and stagnating on all levels as a result. Leaving that workplace in October was the best thing that could have happened as it reminded me that we are not stuck, and there is a whole world out there that exists beyond the stressed blinkers of where you are. I want to make sure that I’m recognising and embracing opportunities to learn in 2019, and gaining experience in all areas, whether it be work, education, life, family etc. And I feel if I am being true to myself, I’ll earn as an outtake of each experience. Financial would be great but I’m also happy with emotional lessons.” Such a great sentiment Mali – we never stop learning!

Thanks again to ALL who took the time to send us their words. And finally, as a sneaky bonus, Lindal J did apologise for sending us a phrase, not a single word – but we forgive her as it’s from the late Stephen Hawking and it mirrors our sentiments to you all:

“Be brave. Be curious. Be determined.”

Whatever words define your 2019, we hope it’s a successful one for you!

I mentioned in the Aliventures newsletter a couple of weeks ago that I finished NaNo on 23,000 words: not all that close to the 50,000 words I’d been aiming for!

So what happened? Several things: I had a bad cold, my kids were poorly, and we had a few unexpected little things go wrong. Some good stuff happened, too: I started volunteering one morning a week at my daughter’s school, and I picked up some more freelancing work.

All of this meant for less novel-writing time.

But one key thing that happened, perhaps more important than all the practical difficulties, was that I just wasn’t enjoying writing my novel.

Aiming for 50,000 words in a month was, frankly, unrealistic – and it was stressing me out!

On Sunday 11th November, for instance, I’d spent the day looking after the kids (Paul was out). I’d taken them to a birthday party, caught two trains home, given them tea, settled them into bed, and so on.

My five-year-old wanted me to stay outside her room while she fell asleep, so I sat on the floor with my laptop, trying to write a scene that just wasn’t coming together (and getting interrupted every three minutes by her wanting to ask for things).

This was possibly a new low in terms of “how badly can a writing session go”!

Maybe you’ve had similar times: times when you feel that you should write, but the fun’s gone out of it. When you feel overly pressured by a deadline, or when the project you’re working on has stopped being enjoyable.

Should Writing Be Fun?

There are plenty of types of writing that aren’t ever going to be “fun”, but that we do anyway. Maybe you have to write a lot of emails at work, for instance, or you’re a freelancer writing about topics that don’t particularly engage you.

In these situations, it may not matter that your writing isn’t much fun: you might be perfectly content to do it for the paycheck. And that’s fine! (Though if you hate the writing you’re doing, then it’s probably time to start thinking about a change of career or at least a change of clients.)

If you’re working on a novel, or a collection of poems, however, or you’re writing short stories for competitions – you aren’t necessarily ever going to see any money for your efforts. While there will almost certainly be tough times during your writing, you want – overall! – to be enjoying the process.

What You Can Do to Make Writing Fun Again

If you feel like the fun’s gone out of writing, you might want to:

#1: Take the Pressure Off

Are you rushing to meet an unrealistic deadline, like I was with NaNo? Some people find deadlines helpful and motivating – I’m one of them! – but trying to cram writing into an overpacked schedule isn’t much fun at all.

Fix it: Unless you really have to hit that deadline, could you push it back a bit? Even an extra couple of weeks might make all the difference to how you’re feeling.

#2: Consider Whether You’re Writing the Right Thing

Sometimes, if you feel that your writing is a chore or a bit pointless, it’s because there’s an issue with the thing you’re writing.

Maybe you’ve dashed forward with your novel without really thinking through the plot (which was part of my NaNo problem, too). Or maybe you’re plodding away with something even though you’ve lost interest in that particular idea.

Fix it: If you want to stick with your current project but it feels like it’s not coming together, sit down with a pen and notebook and do some brainstorming. What could you change? What new elements could you add in – or what could you take out?

#3: Give Yourself Permission to Write “Just For Fun”

How often do you write something purely for the sake of writing – to enjoy playing with words, creating characters, exploring an idea, or whatever it might be?

Probably not often!

When life’s busy, I want all my writing to be adding up to something productive, like a finished blog post, or another chapter of my novel. It can be really difficult to allow myself to simply enjoy writing: to focus on the journey itself, not the destination.

Fix it: Can you give yourself a little bit of time to just have fun with your writing – even if it’s just five or ten minutes once a week? You might want to use writing prompts to get you going (I like the “take three nouns” writing prompt generator).

#4: Quit a Project That Isn’t Working

Sometimes, you try something out and … it doesn’t work.

Maybe you started a blog full of enthusiasm, then lost interest after a few weeks or months. (I had two blogs before Aliventures, on two very different topics, and abandoned both years ago.)

Or maybe you began a novel, enjoyed writing the first few chapters, but have now realised it really isn’t going anywhere.

Fix it: It’s OK to quit. In fact, it’s good to quit things that have served their purpose in your life. Perhaps those first 10,000 words of your novel were a crucial writing experience that you needed to go through in order to write something new and better. Maybe that failed blog gave you the skills you need to start a new, successful one.

With any writing project, big or small, it’s normal to go through some difficult patches.

But, most of the time, your writing should be something that you enjoy: something you look forward to, rather than yet another chore you want to cross off your list as soon as possible.

I thought it would be helpful to create a resource page for all of your writing needs. All of these are tools that I use and recommend. They help me work more efficiently and share my writing with the world.

This page will evolve over time as I discover new resources so I’d recommend bookmarking it!

Please Note:Several of the links below are affiliate links which means I will earn a small commission if you buy the item at no extra cost to you. These small sales are how I keep the site up and running. Thanks for your support!

Blog Hosting

Every writer should have a blog. It’s one of the best ways to share your writing with a wider audience. Read my how-to guide on setting up a blog here.

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform. You can set up a free blog at WordPress.com, but if you’re serious about building a professional web presence and having full control of the website’s design, I recommend buying your own domain and a hosting package through a company like Hostgator.

Hostgator – This is an affordable hosting service when you’re first getting started. They offer easy WordPress installs and 24/7 tech support (both by phone & online chat). I’ve hosted several of my websites at HostGator.

WPX Hosting– My current hosting service for this website. Highly recommend them. I love how fast my website loads. 🙂 Their support is incredible, and they will quickly answer any WordPress questions you have (and fix any problems for you). Free SSL certificates, free security protection and support if your website ever gets hacked, and free website migrations.

Blog Design & WordPress Plugins

There are many free WordPress templates to choose from in the WordPress library and, if you’re brand new to creating websites and navigating the WordPress framework, you might just want to try your hand at customizing those.

However, if you want a professional looking website, I recommend investing in a premium theme. Premium themes come with excellent customer support and are far more secure than free templates.

Here are my two favorite theme libraries:

Elegant Themes – Elegant Themes has developed the Divi Theme, an incredibly versatile WordPress theme with a drag & drop page builder that makes it easier than ever to build beautiful websites. (They also have a plugin that lets you use their drag & drop builder with other WordPress themes. I use this on my websites to create sales pages and landing pages.)

Studio Press – Another fantastic provider of WordPress themes. These themes work on the Genesis Framework that is SEO optimized and has rock-solid security. This website is running on the Genesis framework.

W3 Total Cache (free) – A plugin that will help you improve your site’s speed so it loads faster for visitors.

MailerLite(free) – Not a plugin. 🙂 This is the email marketing service I use to send my weekly email newsletter (subscribe here!). They’ve created a WordPress plugin so you can embed their email sign-up forms on your site.

I’ll continue to add more plugins & tools here!

Royalty Free Photos

Here are several free photo libraries you can use to find stock photos for your blog posts and other writing needs:

Pixabay – All images and videos on Pixabay are released free of copyrights under Creative Commons.

eBook & Graphic Design Tools

Canva (free) – Canva is a user-friendly graphic design software with a wide range of drag and drop templates. Excellent for designing an eBook or a social media graphic.

Writing and Editing Tools

Scrivener – A word-processing program for authors that is a must for organizing, structuring, composing, and formatting long documents. (I particularly recommend it if you are working on self-publishing a novel or eBook.)

Pro Writing Aid– An editing tool for professional authors who want to improve their manuscript before sending it to their editors.

Draftin (free) – An easy to use and distraction-free web-based writing interface.

Day One – A simple and elegant journaling app for Macbook and iPhone. It has helped me implement a daily journaling habit.

CoSchedule Headline Analyzer (free) – The CoSchedule headline analyzer app evaluates how well your blog post’s headline will rank in search engines. It also scores how effectively your headline will result in social shares and click-throughs.

Writing Productivity Tools

Todoist (free) – A task management web application that lets you create to-do lists with recurring dates and times. Use it to remind yourself of your daily writing goals.

Trello (free) – A fantastic web application for organizing and planning writing projects and working collaboratively.

Books & Essays on Writing Well

The Elements of Style – This classic writing guide by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White includes sections on grammar, commonly misused words and phrases, principles of composition when writing an essay, as well as stylistic techniques.

Storycraft– A must-read for any writer. Using examples from books and newspaper articles, journalist Jack Hart deconstructs how to tell a captivating story. He covers everything from how to develop characters to choosing point of view to bringing scenes to life.

The Memoir Project– An inspiring little guide by Marion Roach-Smith, a former staff writer at The New York Times, all about how to write what you know. This is a must-read for anyone interested in writing a memoir or a personal essay.

Story – One of my favorites! Robert McKee’s screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation, and in this book, he lays out everything that you need to know to write powerful stories. An in-depth and fascinating read.

The Story Grid– Shawn Coyne, an editor with 25+ years experience, shows you how to use the Story Grid layout to write a successful novel (or nonfiction book) by telling a compelling story. If you don’t want to purchase the book, you can find all of the information from the book along with free resources at the website Storygrid.com. Make sure to check out the podcast. It’s one of my favorites!

Creating Short Fiction – Damon Knight shares clear, no-nonsense fiction writing advice on everything from structure to pacing to how to get ideas. There are also lots of excellent exercises to put that advice into practice.